Being that today is Halloween, I thought it would be fitting if I reflected on something relevant. MASKS. We all wear them at times. Some of us wear them all the time. I am not taking about scary Halloween masks, but metaphorical masks that we wear to make us look better. We do this because of our deepest longing- to be fully loved. We desperately want to be loved by others. So we put on masks that we are told by our culture will make us more attractive, more likable, more loved. The sad truth is they have the opposite effects. Just as all of Satan schemes, they are deceptive lies. In hiding our true selves we don’t ever feel loved because we know we are wearing a mask. Even if we get love from others we don’t feel it because we think they are loving the false front we have put up and that if they really knew us they would not love us.
This brings me to our other deepest longing as humans beings and that is to be fully known. We want to fully know ourselves (which can be hard enough in our constant distractions, constant noise culture) and we want to be fully known by others who will then fully love us.
It takes way too much work to keep these masks on. But the alternative seems just too scary. To allow ourselves to be fully known and risk being rejected by others or even ourselves seems like an impossible option.
Jesus however, offers us a totally different perspective. He tells us that we are fully known by Him and fully loved at the same time!!
The Gospel message is the solution. We don’t have to buy into the deceptive lies that tell us to keep our best face forward. Jesus and His work on the cross prove to us that he knows our deepest darkness sins (was sent to the cross because of them) and yet He choose the cross because He fully loves us. The victory of the cross is our way out! Resting in the truth that the God of the universe knows me fully and loves me fully, frees me up from feeling the need to wear a mask.
Ephesians 2:4-7
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
